Newsletter

Women file federal lawsuit against Shawnee County D.A. Taylor

Former employees claim gender and race discrimination led to wrongful firing

Two women have filed a federal lawsuit against District Attorney Chad Taylor, citing race and gender discrimination and other issues.

Two women have filed a federal lawsuit against District Attorney Chad Taylor, claiming race and gender discrimination — as well as a host of other issues in the office — led to their wrongful termination more than two years ago.

Krystal L. Boxum-Debolt, of Lawrence, and Lisa Anne Moore, of Rio Rancho, N.M., filed the civil suit on Oct. 1 in the District Court of Kansas alleging six counts. The charges include gender discrimination for lack of providing breast-feeding stations and race discrimination relating to the women’s supervisor, who allegedly used her position to coerce Hispanic employees and clients to clean her home.

The case further claims Taylor’s office acted with retaliation in firing them, violated federal labor laws and denied the women their constitutional right to due process.

Boxum-Debolt and Moore request several forms of compensation, including damages resulting from lost wages, emotional pain and suffering, mental anguish, harm to their reputation and damages for future loss of wages. They also request to be reinstated to their positions and to be protected from the alleged discriminatory practices of the district attorney’s office.

They have asked for a jury trial to be held in Kansas City, Kan., and have retained Eric Smith, an attorney with a Kansas City, Mo., lawfirm, as representation.

The lawsuit also was filed against Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Shawnee County commissioners Ted Ensley, Mary Thomas and Shelly Buhler. The women have directed their suit against Taylor and the commissioners in both their official and individual capacities.

Lee McGowan, chief of staff of the attorney’s office, said Monday the office hadn’t been served with the lawsuit.

“You clearly have more information than we do on this matter,” he said in an email. “We will have no formal statement at this time.”

County counselor Rich Eckert said the county also hadn’t been served. He said the county would rely on the Attorney General’s Office to defend the county in the lawsuit.

Boxum-Debolt started working for the district attorney’s office in August 2005, while Moore began in June 2009. Both were terminated Aug. 2, 2010, following a series of reports they made regarding gender and racial discrimination practices within the office, the case claims.

The filing indicates the women were involved in reporting of gender discrimination starting in Spring 2010. The reports claimed the office discriminated against female employees by “failing to provide an appropriate location to breast feed or pump.”

“These complaints were ridiculed by the Defendants,” the case document continues, “including with statements that Plaintiff Moore must not have enough work to do since she was looking up statutes.”

A few months later, in the middle of July 2010, Boxum-Debolt and Moore were involved in the reporting of “serious violations of law and public policy” regarding conduct of their supervisor, who isn’t named.

The case claims the supervisor used “her position to coerce an Hispanic employee, her family and an Hispanic murder victim’s widow to clean her home.”

The women reported this conduct to the defendants, the document states, and, rather than being protected, the defendants retaliated against them. The lawsuit labels the defendants’ inaction as “outrageous,” with “evil motives or reckless indifference to the rights of others.”

After reporting these instances, the claim states, the women were suspended and ultimately fired. Their wrongful termination, they claim, was the result of gender and sex discrimination, as well as retaliatory and conspiratory actions among the defendants.

The women claim Taylor’s office also violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act by denying them overtime pay, which the act requires for non-exempted employees at a rate of one and one half times the hourly salary.

The case claims that the women “routinely worked in excess of 40 hours per workweek without overtime compensation” and that Taylor’s office failed to accurately record the hours worked by the women.

The act exempts certain white-collar workers, such as executive, administrative and/or professional positions, from the overtime requirement. However, the case argues, those exemptions were improperly applied to the women.